


And I Am Marie of Roumania

by EmmyJay



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: (No actual underage content), (Tagged for past stuff and one proposition that goes nowhere), Bedtime Stories, Bonding, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied Future Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Language, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 05:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20148538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmyJay/pseuds/EmmyJay
Summary: Bedtime at the Trancy manor is always an ordeal.Or: Alois wants a story.





	And I Am Marie of Roumania

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written September 2011. Revised and reposted here August 2019.
> 
> Much as I was Not A Fan of Black Butler II, I was intrigued by the dynamic between Alois and Claude. This fic was the result.
> 
> Opening/closing quotes from Kill Bill Part II.

_"Could you do what you did? Of course you could. But I never thought you would, or could, do that to me._

\---

The child has been down for no more than five minutes when the bell for his bedroom rings, summoning Claude back to his side. The butler complies at once—prompt and efficient, as befits the Butler of Trancy. It takes barely ten seconds to reach Alois' room; the boy still regards him as though it were hours.

"Claude, I can't sleep." From the look of the boy, he has obviously not tried. "Tell me a story."

Claude does not move from his place in the doorway, simply watching his master from afar. "I believe a serving of laudanum would be more beneficial," he says, clipped and polite. "I will—"

"**No**, I want a _story_," Alois cuts him off—his eyes narrowed, lips pursed in a childish pout. "I am your master. You have to do what I say."

He is being antagonistic on purpose, trying to get a rise out of his devil. Claude only bows, one arm bent across his chest—ever the perfect servant. His compliance, however, does not please Alois; if anything, it frustrates him further.

"Never mind," the boy says, for all the world indifferent. "I don't want a story. Get out."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Some hours later, and Claude finds Alois still as he left him, on his back and staring at the ceiling. When the butler leans over to straighten the blankets, the boy catches him by the front of him uniform and drags him down onto the bed with him.

"You could fuck me."

He says it casually, without caring. Claude regards his master coolly, and though his face remains impassive there is something deeper: something primal, raw, like a wild animal clawing behind his eyes. He says nothing.

"I could order you to do it," Alois continues, pressing. He has abandoned all tactics, all methods of seduction trained to him by the old man. He does not smile coyly, or bat his eyes behind his fingers. There is nothing in his face but simple _want_—and even that, he knows not what for. "If I ordered you, then you'd have to. You wouldn't be able to say no." He cocks his head. "Will you hurt me, Claude?"

To this, the butler deigns it appropriate to reply. "No, Your Highness."

"What if I asked you to?"

"I may not bring harm to my Master."

Alois' mouth twists into a frown. Then he leans up, closing the gap between them and stealing the lightest, most chaste of kisses. "Of course not," he agrees. "You wouldn't hurt me."

"No, Your Highness."

"Do you promise?"

Rather than answer, the devil lowers the boy to bed, soothing his hair. Alois sighs, nuzzling against the crook of an elbow.

"Stay with me. I order you."

"Yes, Your Highness."

At long last the boy is slipping: eyelids fluttering, lips going slack. Still he clutches tightly to Claude's sleeve, keeping him at his bedside even as sleep pulls him farther from consciousness. "Claude," he murmurs against the fabric, "tell me a story. But not about a princess, I hate princesses."

Truthfully, Alois does not hear the actual words Claude says after that. He does not need to; all he needs is the sound of his devil's beautiful voice, and the feel of those long, gloved hands soothing his crown—the only hands he allows to touch him in such a state. They protect him, those hands; as long as Claude is touching him, the old man will not.

In those hands, he is safe; with Claude, he is safe.

\---

_"I'm so sorry...but you thought wrong."_


End file.
